Boris Johnson accused of 'lies and hype' as Tories turn on Foreign Secretary over Brexit claims

Minister faces mounting criticism after reviving the most controversial claim made by the Leave campaign before the Brexit referendum

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (Victoria Jones/PA)

Boris Johnson has been accused of “lies and hype” as he faced an increasingly hostile backlash from colleagues after reaffirming his claim that £350m a week will be freed up for Britain after exiting the European Union.

It comes after a weekend of in-fighting at the top of the Conservative party as Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, accused the Foreign Secretary of “back-seat driving” the Brexit process and said she would not like to see Mr Johnson managing the negotiations in Brussels.

Mr Johnson was also publicly reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority after he repeated the widely discredited referendum claim of £350m a week for the NHS in a 4,000 word article setting out his vision for Brexit – just six days before the Prime Minister’s major speech on the very subject in Florence.

In a letter published on Sunday, Sir David Norgrove said he was “surprised and disappointed” that the figure had been revisited and claimed it was a “clear misuse” of official statistics.

Referring to Sir David’s letter, Anna Soubry, the former Conservative minister and prominent backbencher, said it was “really important to accept Brexit reality”, adding that the “British people are fed up with Leave lies and hype”.

The claim was exhaustively debunked by statisticians and news outlets, and even top Brexiteer Nigel Farage was quick to distance himself from it immediately after the referendum.

While many colleagues interpreted Mr Johnson’s unprecedented intervention in the Daily Telegraph on Friday as a leadership bid or a prelude to resignation at the Conservative party conference in two weeks’ time, the Prime Minister’s closest ally, Damian Green, said the Foreign Secretary would not be sacked.

The First Secretary of State and de facto Deputy Prime Minister urged for “people to calm down”, claiming “there wasn’t anything surprising” in Mr Johnson’s article.

Defence minister Tobias Ellwood echoed Mr Green’s plea and called for “poise, purpose and unity” to counter the impression of discord in the party.

But Mr Ellwood, who served under Mr Johnson at the Foreign Office until June, posted on Twitter: “Party discord: think many would we are not witnessing our finest hour, at a testing time when poise, purpose and unity are called for.”

Labour's Chuka Umunna, a supporter of Open Britain group campaigning for a soft Brexit, said Mr Johnson's “outright lying” had been exposed while Sir Vince Cable praised the UK Statistics Authority for having the “courage to slap Boris down”.

Ms Rudd said on Sunday she had been “too busy” dealing with the Parsons Green bomb attack to read the opus and criticised the Foreign Secretary for releasing the piece at the time of the blast.

The Home Secretary insisted the Prime Minister is “driving the car” on Brexit and, when pressed on Mr Johnson's actions, said: “You could call it backseat driving.”

Defending the Foreign Secretary, however, Jacob Rees-Mogg said the article was “tremendous” and claimed his fellow Conservative MP had “magnificently rejected” the “depressing view” that Britain could not cope without the protection of the European Union.